China is rigorously developing its shale gas industry with the goal of producing up to one-hundred billion cubic meters of natural gas by 2020.
Beijing's drive is part of efforts to improve air quality and shift its power generation towards cleaner-burning natural gas.
China has the world's biggest potential reserves of natural gas in shale rock, twice as much as the shale leader United States.
Pundits say that, if the shale gas industry takes hold in China, it could hurt Korea's exports of petrochemical products, of which more than half heads to Asia's largest economy.